feistyfish

couldn't find this at my local petco. is this available only online?

nanobettaman

I found mine at the local petco... they only had one tho.

AquaHokie

I was at my local Petco and they had an Elite Mini (they only had one left too) so I thought I would give it a shot as a co2 reactor after reading about it here. See pics below!

Elite Mini box



The box contains the filter, flow nozzle, and tube with a venturi aerator.


Water flows in from the bottom of the filter and exits from the hole below. The green tab is the flow control slider.


Take the filter apart and remove the filter sponge as well as the green flow control slider.


Place the flow nozzle into the filter sponge.



Put the filter back together. The hole where the flow control slider was is where your co2 tube goes.



Put the filter sponge nozzle on the filter and your co2 tube in the flow control slider hole.



Place the filter in your tank, plug it in, watch the bubbles fly and the plants pearl!


Overall, the reactor works great in my 56 gallon tank. I placed the filter behind some driftwood in my tank so its out of sight. The output from my canister filter is right above it to help push any bubbles that reach the surface around the tank. The first full day it was hooked up my pH dropped from 7.4 to 7 and could've dropped more had I increased the bubble count. I'm impressed with how tiny the bubbles are when they come out of the reactor and my plants have been pearling like crazy. As other posters mentioned earlier, the reactor does make some noise as co2 passes through the filter. For me, the fans on the lights of my tank are much louder than the noise the reactor makes, so I don't hear anything unless I'm right next to the tank. The filter itself cost me about $10 so its great for someone on a budget. Thanks for the great idea!

feistyfish

just to let you know i think your photos are pw encrypted.

AquaHokie

Ok I think they should work now

taoyeah

i bought the mini underwater filter today.i saw alot tiny co2 bubbles comes out from the sponge.my tank is 30G.im afraid the fish will die there too much co2 in the tank,so i put a airpump with airstone inside the tank to increase the oxygen.

Pat Bowerman

Another big thumbs up on this one. I bought the Hagen Mini, followed the instructions posted here, and that little thing is amazing. Now, I've tiny, tiny little bubbles floating around my tank and the plants are pearling like crazy. I'll admit to being nervous that it might be too efficient, but I left it on last night and the fish were fine this morning. I also really don't mind the noise. Without it, I wouldn't know how many bubbles per second I was putting in. (no bubble counter on this one) I've got a 20L and I'm adding CO2 at the rate of 1 bubble per sec.

So far, so good. Thanks for posting this.

niko

I know, this reactor keeps on giving!

Yesterday I broke down a 30 gallon tank that was completely overgrown with moss and Java Fern. It had one of the Super Magic Elite reactors in it. I couldn' see it but I remembered it was in there.

The plants kept growing like crazy even though the CO2 had run out months ago. THAT'S how amazing this reactor is! It works even without CO2!

...Now, what would be even better - if you remove the actual reactor from the tank and the plants still grow! I think it can pull this one off, this reactor is indeed something alien... its presence in the room may make the plants grow... We shall see...

--Nikolay

hoppycalif

What does the sponge do? Don't you get the fine bubbles just from running the CO2 through the impeller? It is sure hard to beat the price on this!

AquaHokie

If you have the sponge on the bubbles will float to the surface pretty much right above the reactor. If you take it off the bubbles fly all over the place. I orginally had the sponge on with the bubbles floating up to the output on my canister filter, but I ended up taking the sponge off and it seems to do a better job with increasing co2 levels.